Top intel agency says China used TikTok to influence U.S. elections
Source: Axios
Why it matters: The warning comes during an election year and as the House prepares to vote on legislation to force China's ByteDance to divest from TikTok or else the platform will be banned from app stores in the U.S.
Congress is pursuing the legislation over national security concerns about the Chinese government's access to U.S. user data and its ability to conduct influence campaigns through the platform.
Context: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the head of the U.S.' 18 intelligence agencies, releases a yearly assessment on the major threats to the nation's interests around the world.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/2024/03/11/tiktok-china-us-elections-influence
IronLionZion
(45,457 posts)There are American short video services like Facebook/Instagram/Youtube if people want an alternative. Humanity would probably be better off without any of them.
PortTack
(32,778 posts)My guess is youve never been on TikTok. There are lots of great creators there including presidents Obama and Biden, Adam Schiff, other democratic congress ppl and senators.
If you want to reach young voters TikTok needs to be included.
BlueWavePsych
(2,635 posts)Yintao Yu, formerly head of engineering for ByteDance in the United States, says those same people had access to U.S. user data, an accusation that the company denies.
Yu, who worked for the company in 2018, made the allegations in a recent filing for a wrongful dismissal case filed in May in the San Francisco Superior Court. In the documents submitted to the court, he said ByteDance had a "superuser credential" also known as a "god credential" that enabled a special committee of Chinese Communist Party members stationed at the company to view all data collected by ByteDance, including those of U.S. users.
The credential acted as a "backdoor to any barrier ByteDance had supposedly installed to protect data from the C.C.P's surveillance," the filing says.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tiktok-hong-kong-1.6868141
Backdoor to every TikTok user
Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)First, this is just xenophobic propaganda, part of our big upset about China being better at this capitalism thing than we are.
But more importantly tik tok is hugely popular. Bad political move. Democrats should distance themselves from this.
All social media platforms are full of dubious content. Nothing unique about tik tok other than China.
twodogsbarking
(9,759 posts)Johnny2X2X
(19,066 posts)TikTok can avoid a ban if they disassociate themselves with China a little more.
SouthernDem4ever
(6,617 posts)Chinese govt has full control of TikTok when it deems necessary.
IronLionZion
(45,457 posts)Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)to defend our remaining productive capacity.
Remember when both parties were all waving the Free Trade flag? Nobody is talking that shit anymore.
SoFlaBro
(1,926 posts)Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)Last edited Tue Mar 12, 2024, 06:41 PM - Edit history (1)
Or how you manage to separate them.
I suppose you could conveniently ignore the slave labor and exploitive capitalism that is integrated into our system. You could pretend that the hideous situation in the early iphone era at FoxCon was somehow not connected to the rise of Apple to a trillion dollar valuation. And obviously our global system of production is dependent on hideously exploitative labor relations all over the globe, not just in China. We have migrant children getting mangled in meat processing plants right here in the USA.
IronLionZion
(45,457 posts)and unions using collective bargaining for better conditions. Yes of course the treatment of migrant workers is deplorable and that needs to be addressed somehow.
US Conservatives complain constantly about "job killing" regulations. China doesn't have much of that. In China if lots of people die, they die.
Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)But that is irrelevant. The global economic system that we still are the largest national component of, and whose traditional global institutions and regulatory agencies we generally dominate, is massively dependent on labor forces that are outside the EU, Japan, and the US, and frequently in countries with effectively zero environmental or labor regulations.
SoFlaBro
(1,926 posts)Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)progressoid
(49,991 posts)Guess what app is more popular in the US than Tik Tok?
TEMU!
In the report, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said Temus business model essentially allows the company to avoid responsibility in complying with a U.S. law that block imports from Chinas Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove the items were made without forced labor.
American consumers should know that there is an extremely high risk that Temus supply chains are contaminated with forced labor, the report said.
....https://apnews.com/article/temu-shein-forced-labor-china-de7b5398c76fda58404abc6ec5684972
Igel
(35,320 posts)Oh, wait, that decision is up to ByteDance. The only way it gets "banned" and shut down if ByteDance doesn't put it up for sale and take their money home with them.
Like a lot of things that are presented as being entirely one sided, it takes two to tango in this case.
A large corporation is making a lopsided case for keeping one of its prominent US assets, one that might really become profitable in the US, as well as making its authoritarian enabler happy and able to spy and infiltrate and influence,
I'd imagine if ByteDance wasn't based in the CPR but in the Russian Federation and was Байтвтактe many people's views would be rather different.
Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)We are not at war with China. China is not at war with anyone. All the major commercial social media platforms are toxic. Disinformation and bad actors abound. Perhaps we should address that problem rather than blindly cheerleading xenophobic bullshit.
ThreeNoSeep
(85 posts)If it is only about sharing private data with foreign companies, perhaps the US Government should ban the acquisition of ANY personal data by any foreign or domestic entity without the permission of the original human source of that data.
If the US wants to keep Chinese companies and governments from my data, then the US should keep all companies and governments from access to that data, by law.
Shipwack
(2,164 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,322 posts)Here's all the report says about TikTok:
experimenting with generative AI. TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly
targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022.
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2024-Unclassified-Report.pdf
We have no idea what they put out using those accounts, or how they "targeted" which candidates. I suppose you could say that if China influences TikTok management, it could ensure that those accounts don't get banned if someone complains about them.
Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)Government social media accounts, the official ones, are normal. I assume each government publishes their ideological views. As they should.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,322 posts)or clandestine - probably the latter (because if it's plain the Chinese government was talking about candidates, it would probably be remarked on more).
Voltaire2
(13,063 posts)Why do we think that a) only government agencies are a problem, b) China is the only government doing this, c) our government isn't also doing this?
I think disinformation of all sorts is a huge problem, but it is not primarily a foreign government problem, at least not with respect to US political disinformation propagation on social media targeted at the US population. That shit is coming mainly from domestic sources.
So I view this whole Tik Tok Panic as, quite unironically, a disinformation propaganda campaign, part of the effort to make China our new Global Adversary.
ThreeNoSeep
(85 posts)I appreciate your point. After reading the OP article, i asked myself, what was the mechanism the Chinese government was using to influence elections? A quick Google search revealed it was about Chinese-backed influencers and selling user data specifically. The generic boogy man of " Chinese ownership earns far less actual justification.
"The bills primary backers, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), say the app poses a grave threat to U.S. national security due to its Chinese ownership, and they warn that TikTok could be used to influence U.S. public opinion or harness user data to spy on Americans. "
From here
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/12/tiktok-ban-bill-us-congress/
BlueWavePsych
(2,635 posts)The annual assessment from ODNI outlines national security threats facing the U.S. in the coming year, and warns that China may attempt to influence this years elections through online influence and disinformation campaigns.
ODNI alleges that TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022, and that China is demonstrating a higher degree of sophistication in its influence activity, including experimenting with generative AI.
The reports release comes as lawmakers are increasingly concerned about national security threats that TikTok poses. House lawmakers are expected to vote Wednesday on a bill that would force Beijing-based ByteDance to sell TikTok or it would face a ban from U.S. app stores.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/11/china-is-using-tiktok-for-influence-campaigns-odni-says-00146336
Axios down. Might be DoS
Scrivener7
(50,955 posts)NoodleyAppendage
(4,619 posts)TikTok and other watch/swipe social media platforms have ZERO redeeming value in our society.
J
rockfordfile
(8,704 posts)China and Russia are threats to USA.